On the day some of the 2011 UK Census data gets released, I’m sharing a few reflections about my experience in April last year when I did some work as a Census Collector.
In the UK, a detailed census is carried out every 10 years, and has been since 1801 (except 1941 during the Second World War). The questions have become more and more complex as the years have gone by. The Wikipedia site I just linked to gives an evolution of the questions asked, and also gives various reasons for doing a census – nowadays it plays a massively important role in resource allocation (setting council budgets, for example).
Census Collectors were the people who knocked on doors to follow up non-return of the census forms, so you would start off with a very long list of compact addresses to follow-up and over the month the list got smaller and more spread out as forms were returned or turned up at whatever warehouse they all were sent to. It wasn’t very highly paid but (a)I’m currently a student, (b)I thought the physical exercise would be good and (c)I like genealogy anyway so I was interested in being involved in the big event.
After we’d applied, done the online testing, had a telephone interview and done the online training we went off to a hotel for a few hours to prove our identity and get trained. A lot of it was about which forms to fill in when, how to recognise various types of dwelling/occupancies and how to deal with householders. My overarching recollection will always be that the training was nothing like the actual experience. I remember learning to use the multilingual cue cards in case someone who didn’t speak English answered. And I remember rehearsing a variety of persuasive arguments for householders who thought it was all a waste of time or that the data would be used in some way to monitor them individually. I don’t think I ever used those aspects.
On my first day I remember telling my Coordinator (team boss) that I wouldn’t be going into people’s houses. This wasn’t required and was entirely discretionary. I think I lasted about 4 minutes. You knock on a door, show a badge and people just invite you in. A lot of the time they’re expecting you because Nora up the road has seen you walking and has told everybody on the street. So, I thought if I’m going to go in then we can fill it in together and that’s what I did A LOT OF. I’m sure the Census finance manager wouldn’t agree but actually it was massively efficient because I didn’t have to keep going back. I strongly suspect a lot of householders just wanted someone to talk to – there are a lot of lonely and bored people about.
For some people, getting a massive form where they have to navigate pages is a complete mystery. Other people – in receipt of benefits, or in public social housing ask, “Hasn’t the Government got this all already?” – instead of being threatened by the questions they’re just bored at what they see as more form filling for what looks like the same people asking the same questions ( a question the Beyond2011 project is looking at). It was a completely opposite reaction to my peer group who were discussing the problems of Lockheed Martin and the CIA using the data……
I also wasn’t prepared for finding myself on the sofa of someone with moderate Alzheimer’s Disease, having the same fragment of conversation again and again and again and again and again. This happened about 3 or 4 times I think, at different addresses. I had absolutely no idea how to extricate myself from the situation and – unbelievably – there was no routine within the census system for these households to be exempted, so theoretically someone should just have carried on going back again and again. I didn’t. I also sat with a man who couldn’t complete his own census as he was partially paralysed after a motorbike accident he’d had decades ago when he was young – I had to ask him what his last job was and when.It was a sobering experience.
The other thing that really struck me was the tiniest insight I got into social care in the UK. I was amazed at how many people were providing unpaid care for family members (1 in 10 apparently, with a third of these giving 20 hours or more a week. Just imagine that for a moment). I was also amazed at how many people are employed in the care sector. IT’S HUGE. Anecdotally, I would say that 70% of the women I spoke to worked as care providers. The rows and rows of women that used to work in factories in the UK? They’re all giving bedbaths to Great-Aunty Joan in a residential home. In my complete naivety, I thought being a professional caregiver was some sort of vocation. I’m sure for some it is, but I’m sure for many it’s simply a job (no more no less) and I find that a bit disconcerting. I say this to point to my own learning, not in judgement of anyone.
Overall, I absolutely loved it. It was such a rich experience, talking to loads of people I wouldn’t normally interact with, being invited into people’s homes and seeing how they live. I would recommend it to anyone, but particularly social scientists (in the broadest interpretation) – it was great fieldwork experience. I hope they don’t discontinue it.